Octopus Intelligent Go - Change of behaviour?

ASA201

Hi folks

I've just returned from an abroad holiday and have noticed a considerable change in behaviour when charging my EV with Octopus Intelligent Go.

Let me try and explain

Since I have had my EV anytime I plugged in and IOG created a daytime schedule the car would follow this and charge.  Let's say the slots provided on a day were 08:00 - 10:00 11:00 - 13:00, 13:30 - 17:00. 

Sometimes the slots would change during the day, which is fine, but other days they would remain static.  For the purposes of this change in behaviour let's assume the slots above remains static and didn't change.

There were times that the car would charge within a few hours, so let's say the car charged by 12:00.  When this happened I would always get the remaining slots in the created schedule even though the car was no longer accepting a charge, so in essence in the example above between 12:00 - 13:00 and 13:00 - 17:00 all my home electricity usage would remain on the low rate even though the car wasn't charging.

I'm 100% sure this is the case as have over a period of months noted the plug in, charged by, unplugged by times as well as the slots and compared this to the formal bill when generated.

What I've noticed over the last week however is that regardless what slots IOG creates, again lets assume the same as above, once the car is charged the slots are no longer visible in the Octopus App (previously they would be even if the car had fully charged) but instead the app has changed to a message which says "Smart Control Ready".

Clearly folks will be able to see why this is disadvantageous but I wondered if it is happening to everyone or if anyone else seems to still be managing to operate in the former way I've described?

QrizB

Can you clarify whether it's your car that is linked to IOG, or your charger? And what make/model of both?

ASA201

It is the charger connected, Zappi 2.  The car for info though is a BMW iX3

MWT

ASA201 said:

Clearly folks will be able to see why this is disadvantageous but I wondered if it is happening to everyone or if anyone else seems to still be managing to operate in the former way I've described?

This is intended behaviour and yes, it is a recent change.

Too many people exploiting this 'feature' by requesting say 100% charge when they only needed 20% so they would get lots of cheap slots but not actually charge in them.

Glad this has changed as it was always intended that you should only be getting energy at the low-rate in periods where the car was accepting a charge.

ASA201

MWT said:

ASA201 said:

Clearly folks will be able to see why this is disadvantageous but I wondered if it is happening to everyone or if anyone else seems to still be managing to operate in the former way I've described?

This is intended behaviour and yes, it is a recent change.

Too many people exploiting this 'feature' by requesting say 100% charge when they only needed 20% so they would get lots of cheap slots but not actually charge in them.

Glad this has changed as it was always intended that you should only be getting energy at the low-rate in periods where the car was accepting a charge.

Have you seen anything formal that communicates the change?  Whilst I understand your point of view in terms of you should only be getting energy at the low-rate in periods where the car was accepting the change I'm not sure this can be badged as people exploiting the feature, they are actually just benefiting from a flaw in the design.

Interestingly though there is now more disparity across the landscape as those using granny chargers will still be getting the benefit from this... 

MWT

ASA201 said:

MWT said:

ASA201 said:

Clearly folks will be able to see why this is disadvantageous but I wondered if it is happening to everyone or if anyone else seems to still be managing to operate in the former way I've described?

This is intended behaviour and yes, it is a recent change.

Too many people exploiting this 'feature' by requesting say 100% charge when they only needed 20% so they would get lots of cheap slots but not actually charge in them.

Glad this has changed as it was always intended that you should only be getting energy at the low-rate in periods where the car was accepting a charge.

I'm not sure this can be badged as people exploiting the feature, they are actually just benefiting from a flaw in the design.

That sounds like a distinction without a difference...

When you know how much energy your car needs but decide to ask for a lot more so you can benefit from the flaw that sounds like an exploit to me...

Either way, that is not going to happen now, and yes, people can use methods like the granny charger to slow down charge sessions and get more time at the low-rate, but until that bothers Octopus sufficiently I imagine it is unlikely to be changed.

There was no official announcement from Octopus as none was really needed as it was fixing a 'flaw' as you put it, not changing the advertised features of the system.

I believe some Ohme users did receive a message from Ohme about a similar change on their side of things, but IOG on Ohme is handled by Ohme, not Octopus so that is why they were messaged.   

mmmmikey

ASA201 said:

MWT said:

ASA201 said:

Clearly folks will be able to see why this is disadvantageous but I wondered if it is happening to everyone or if anyone else seems to still be managing to operate in the former way I've described?

This is intended behaviour and yes, it is a recent change.

Too many people exploiting this 'feature' by requesting say 100% charge when they only needed 20% so they would get lots of cheap slots but not actually charge in them.

Glad this has changed as it was always intended that you should only be getting energy at the low-rate in periods where the car was accepting a charge.

Have you seen anything formal that communicates the change?  Whilst I understand your point of view in terms of you should only be getting energy at the low-rate in periods where the car was accepting the change I'm not sure this can be badged as people exploiting the feature, they are actually just benefiting from a flaw in the design.

Interestingly though there is now more disparity across the landscape as those using granny chargers will still be getting the benefit from this... 

I think you have to accept it is reasonable for Octopus to fix (in your words) flaws in the system without any specific communication as long as there's no change to or breach of the T's and C's.  I wouldn't read too much in to the use of the word "exploit" - to me it just means "taking advantage of" in this context and doesn't imply any wrongdoing on your part.

kingstreet

FWIW Ohme now prevents its charge end "ready by" to be before 4am and after 11am to prevent system gaming.

MWT

kingstreet said:

FWIW Ohme now prevents its charge end "ready by" to be before 4am and after 11am to prevent system gaming.

That was another one that needed to be fixed as those time limits have been in the integrations directly managed by Octopus for a long time now. 

Worth noting that this doesn't mean that IOG will not decide to use times outside that period for its own reasons, just that you can't force it in the same way as it was possible to do in the past.